


Smoke and Mirrors

by unoriginal_liz



Category: Life with Derek
Genre: Doppelganger, Gen, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-21
Updated: 2009-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:23:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3981379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unoriginal_liz/pseuds/unoriginal_liz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marti tilted her head to the side, and the girl in the mirror did the same, but Marti could tell it was wrong – the other Marti did it a little bit too slow or something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke and Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the cliche bingo card prompt 'mirror mirror: Dopplegangers and evil doubles'

It was an accident.

She wanted to make potions, but all her potion-making equipment was in the bathroom, and Casey was having a shower. She tried to wait, but she didn’t know how long Casey was going to be, and she _really_ wanted to make potions.

So she went into Casey’s room and borrowed her pretty purple perfume. Then she took Derek’s deodorant. Edwin gave her a small pot of yuck that was left over from his Slimy Slugs kit, and Lizzie tossed her a lip balm that she said probably tasted worse than “the gross yellow stuff you’re holding. What is that, anyway?”

When she had finished collecting all the potions ingredients, she went back into her room and emptied the brown box she kept all her pretty hair things in. Then she sat on the floor and got to work. She squashed Lizzie’s lip balm between her fingers, and rubbed it against the bottom of the box. It turned her fingers light pink and shiny, but Lizzie was right, it didn’t taste nice. Next, she added Edwin’s goopy slime, and tried to get it to mix properly with the greasy bits of lip balm. She squirted some perfume on top of that. Finally she got the can of deodorant and she sprayed it over everything. She wrinkled her nose. It smelled like a fight between Derek and Casey. She took a deep, considering breath, before announcing, “Sorry, Casey – Smerek wins.”

She smushed everything together into a big potionsy mess. It felt satisfyingly thick and squelchy as it dripped between her fingers.

After that, she was finished and a little bit bored and ready to do something else. So she tried to get up without touching the floor, because when she got the blackcurrant juice on the carpet, Nora wasn’t happy. Now that piece of floor was a swamp, and Sir Monksalot had to rescue any toys that fell in.

So Marti braced her hands inside the box, which started sliding on the floor as soon as she tried to lever herself up. She stuck out her hand for balance and ended up leaving a big greasy handprint on the long mirror on her wall. She tried to wipe it off with her sleeve, but that just smeared the potion right across the mirror and made it worse. She rubbed her hands clean on her skirt and frowned at the mirror. The Marti on the other side frowned too, but she was blurrier than usual, fuzzy around the edges. She looked different, somehow.

Marti tilted her head to the side, and the girl in the mirror did the same, but Marti could tell it was wrong – the other Marti did it a little bit too slow or something. She leaned forward until she and the Marti in the mirror were almost nose to nose, and she opened her eyes very wide, so that she wouldn’t miss it when the other Marti blinked. But unfortunately, the other Marti must have blinked every time she did, or else she just figured out what Marti was up to, because Marti never caught her out.

After that, Casey came in to call her for dinner, and she saw her perfume bottle and the mess, and Marti ended up forgetting all about the mirror.

Until later, anyway.

When she woke, her Mouse Treehouse nightlight was all lit up. She got out of bed and padded out to the bathroom, where the light was too bright and made her eyes squinch up. Then, when she was finished, she came back into her room.

She was just going to get into bed again, when she saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. Slowly, she took a few steps towards the mirror. In the soft glow of her nightlight, the girl in there looked kind of lonely. Marti gave her a tiny wave, and the Marti in the mirror waved back. Encouraged, Marti stepped even closer.

Eventually, she ended up playing with Sir Monksalot and Effie the cow in front of the mirror-Marti, who watched her intently, and mimicked every movement she made.

She didn’t do it all the time, but if she remembered, she’d wave hello and goodbye to the mirror Marti when she was going in and out of her room. And sometimes, if she woke up in the middle of the night, she’d play with her for a few minutes, even though it wasn’t much fun playing with someone who wasn’t really even in the same room.

The mirror Marti must have thought the same thing, because one night, when Marti stood in front of her, clutching her stuffed frog Frogger, the mirror Marti gave a tiny shake of her head, so small Marti could hardly see it, and just the smallest twitch of her pointer finger. If Marti hadn’t noticed the little shake of her head, she would definitely have missed the infinitesimal crooking of mirror Marti’s finger. But since she did see it, and because she had spent time with mirror Marti, she recognized it instantly for the invitation it was.

Even though it was a long mirror, it was set too high on the wall for Marti to just step into. As quietly as she could, she dragged her Princess stool with the pink ribbons over. The mirror Marti did the same thing. Cautiously, she put one hand on the wall to the side of the mirror, and reached out with the other.

The mirror Marti’s hand came out at the same time, and then they were touching, grasping hands, and the mirror Marti was pulling her in.

The stool toppled over with a big bang, and they landed on the floor in a jumble of Marti. It took them a couple of minutes to figure out which pieces went with which Marti, then, when they had, Marti said, “Maybe we should hide.”

The mirror Marti tilted her head.

It was still just them in the room, but Marti had the feeling it wouldn’t be for very long. “We probably didn’t wake your Smerek, but your Casey and your Lizzie probably heard us.”

The mirror Marti shook her head, a bigger, more definite gesture now.

Marti frowned, even though she couldn’t hear anything – no bodies moving, no footsteps, nothing. It was completely silent – but it wasn’t sleep-quiet, it was different. It was a sharp kind of quiet, and it made Marti’s ears ring.

“I’m just going to check, okay?” she said, and turned. It was then that she noticed exactly how strange this place was. “Your room is the wrong way around,” she told the mirror Marti, before she made her way over to the bedroom door and opened it.

She closed it quickly. “Where’s the rest of your house?” she asked.

The mirror Marti stared back at her. “…house?” she echoed.

“Yeah. Your house,” Marti said impatiently. “Where is it?” She looked around. “Where do your dad and your Nora and Smerek and Edwin and Casey and Lizzie live?”

In response, the mirror Marti sat down on the floor, and held out her stuffed frog to Marti. All his colour patches were in the wrong places. Marti folded her arms, waiting for an answer, but the mirror Marti just kept holding out her mirror Frogger. Finally, Marti sighed, and sat down, and took the stuffed frog.

Even though Marti had thought that if they were in the same room, they’d be able to play better games, it wasn’t really like that in the end. All the mirror Marti seemed to know how to do was copy. Everything Marti did, she did. It was boring and it started to make Marti feel cross.

So she didn’t stay long, and after she told the mirror Marti she wanted to go back to her room, she said, “I don’t know if I can come back.” It wasn’t a lie. It was manners.

“Come back,” the mirror Marti said, frowning at her, and Marti tried to be nice, because mirror Marti was boring, but she also didn’t have a dad or a Smerek or a Nora or anyone.

“If I remember,” she allowed.

“Remember,” the mirror Marti told her.

This time, Marti just reached through the mirror, bending over where the gap began. Her hands felt down the wall underneath the mirror, on the other side, and she pushed up on her tiptoes and forward, until the bottom of her mirror was digging into her hips, and her head felt like it was turning into a big red balloon from hanging upside down. Then her hands finally found the floor, and she was able to lean on them, and scrabble her knees onto the edge of the mirror. When she maneuvered her feet up there, she readied herself, and gave a frog leap, and then, finally, all of her was on the floor in the right room.

She stood up, and turned around. The mirror Marti was still there, looking after her. Marti waved goodbye, and the mirror Marti did the same. _Copycat._

Marti turned her back and stuck out her tongue.

She was very tired, so she didn’t remember getting back into bed – but the next morning, she did remember deciding that she was only going to make potions in the bathroom from now on. There wasn’t any carpet in there, so it wasn’t as messy, and the mirror was too small to climb into, even if she did have another accident.


End file.
